1 So in the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his whole army. He encamped against the city and built siege works all around it.
2 The city remained under siege until King Zedekiah's eleventh year.
3 On the ninth day of the month the famine in the city had grown so severe that the people of the land had nothing to eat.
4 Then the city wall was broken through, and all the soldiers fled by night through the gate between the two walls near the king's garden, though the Chaldeans surrounded the city. The king set off toward the Arabah,
5 but the Chaldean army chased the king and caught up with him in the plains of Jericho. His whole army deserted him and scattered.
6 They captured the king and took him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where sentence was pronounced on him.
7 They slaughtered Zedekiah's sons as he watched; then they blinded Zedekiah, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon.
8 On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard and servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.
9 He set fire to the LORD's house, the palace and all the houses of Jerusalem; every important building he burned down.
10 The whole Chaldean army under the captain of the guard tore down the walls all around Jerusalem.
11 Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took into exile the rest of the people still in the city, the deserters who had gone over to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the population.
12 But the captain of the guard left behind some of the poorest people of the land to tend the vineyards and work the fields.
13 The Chaldeans broke up the bronze pillars in the LORD's house, the stands and the bronze Sea in the LORD's house, and carried the bronze away to Babylon.
14 They also took away the pots, shovels, snuffers, dishes and all the bronze articles used in the temple service.
15 The captain of the guard took away the firepans and sprinkling bowls, what was of gold as gold and what was of silver as silver.
16 The bronze from the two pillars, the Sea and the stands, which Solomon had made for the LORD's house, was more than could be weighed.
17 Each pillar was eighteen cubits high. The bronze capital on top of it was three cubits high, with a network and pomegranates all around the capital, all of bronze. The second pillar, with its network, was the same.
18 The captain of the guard took as prisoners Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest next in rank, and the three doorkeepers.
19 From the city he took the officer in charge of the fighting men, five of those who saw the king's face who were still in the city, the scribe of the army commander who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the city.
20 Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them all and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah.
21 There at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, the king of Babylon had them struck down and executed. So Judah went into exile, away from its land.
22 Over the people he had left behind in the land of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam son of Shaphan.
23 All the army officers and their men heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah as governor, and they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah: Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah son of the Maacathite, together with their men.
24 Gedaliah took an oath to reassure them and their men. "Do not be afraid of the Chaldean officials," he said. "Settle in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and all will go well with you."
25 In the seventh month, however, Ishmael son of Nethaniah son of Elishama, who was of royal blood, came with ten men and struck Gedaliah down, and he died, as did the Judeans and the Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah.
26 At this all the people, from the least to the greatest, together with the army officers, got up and went to Egypt, because they were afraid of the Chaldeans.
27 In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month, Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year he became king, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah and released him from prison.
28 He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat of honor higher than those of the other kings who were with him in Babylon.
29 So Jehoiachin took off his prison clothes, and for the rest of his life he ate regularly at the king's table.
30 Day by day the king provided him a regular allowance, a portion for each day, as long as he lived.